iants! The very stuff of myth and legend, giants live in the gray area between myth and history, flitting about on the periphery of human memory like the shades of departed spirits. Like the
mysterious sea serpents,
giants populate the myths and histories of peoples all over the world. However, unlike the mysterious sea serpents, giant sightings are now rarely reported, and the ancient stories of giants in the Earth  once prominent in human memory  on the great scales of human belief are quickly fading into the nether realm of myth.

However, this was not always the case. Prominent references in the Bible and numerous other religious and historical texts from around the world make prominent mention of a time in mankind's distant past wherein giants walked the Earth. At one time the belief in giants was as prevalent as the belief in angels, but now the belief in things unusual and supernatural in general seems to be increasingly falling prey to the relentless onslaught of the modern age of rationalism and almighty science. It appears it is now up to these shadowy beings to make themselves known once more, or else disappear forever into the ranks of myth and legend. Ironically, it may be science, that implacable enemy of myth, that may resurrect the very giants whose existence it had sought in vain to erase from the memory of man.

The ancient Near East, the Americas, Africa, Asia and Australia, and Europe in particular all have stories of abnormally large humans of various sizes. From tribes of unusually tall, strongly built men ranging anywhere from 8-12 feet in height to solitary giants towering several miles high, stories of giants are among the favorites of storytellers worldwide. However, whereas some giants are perceived as gentle and harmless, even beneficent, more often than not, giants were described as being possessed of wicked minds and insatiable appetites  engaging in unnatural acts shocking even to the modern mind. These wicked sons of Belial were known for their immense size, raging appetites, devious minds, aggressive behavior, technological sophistication and, above all, skill in the art of war.

All together, these features proved to be a deadly combination, and the giants conquerered and enslaved all but the strongest foes with ease. As a result, these wicked giants of old were usually to be found ruling over large masses of normal-sized human beings  whom we now know as homo sapiens  keeping them as slaves and, it is whispered, as fodder for various unsavory uses. Constantly at war with homo sapiens, whom the giants considered to be inferior due to their small size and moderate disposition, the giants constantly lived on the knife's edge of either absolute domination or total extermination  giving no quarter, and in turn, receiving none.

But where did this mysterious race of giants come from? Among those that believe in the existence of these ancient aberrations, there have been several explanations:

HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT:
Giants are a race of unusually tall people that came into being as a result of healthy living conditions and good nutrition. Homo sapiens today, for example, is taller than he has been for many centuries, if not thousands of years, due largely to good nutrition and dramatic improvements in living conditions worldwide;

SELECTIVE BREEDING:
Giants are the result of selective breeding over time to create a "worker class" from within the larger population. These larger, stronger people were intended to be used as warriors, heavy laborers, and in other positions that require great size and strength. This practice has been employed in various times and places in recorded history for this very same reason. This unusual size may have been supplemented by the consumption of hormonal or steroidal supplements, as has been done in modern times;

DIVINE INTERVENTION:
Giants are the result of interbreeding between humans and fallen angels, with the intent of creating a "master race". This master race, some believe, was intended to rule over the earth and over homo sapiens, eventually supplanting homo sapiens entirely.

Though the first two solutions are reasonable  and may also be part of the equation  by far the most commonly reported origin of the giants of old was that they were born of divine parentage. As we saw in
Part II
of our
Atlantis
series, many of the ancient texts of mankind tell of a time when divine beings came down to earth and, tempted by the beauty of human women, took wives from among them and sired offspring that grew to be gigantic in stature. As Larkin & Teale explain in their classic popular work on the subject,
Giants,

Giants varied in size, but were certainly beyond classification by human standards both in terms of size and power. For example, the
Book of Enoch
relates that angels sent by God to guard the earth were seduced by the beauty of terrestrial women who subsequently gave birth to demoniacal sons 3,000 cubits [approx. 4,500 feet] high. Later, ancient historians tell us, Og, the King of Bashan, who lived three thousand years, escaped the Flood by wading only knee-deep beside the Ark. He was able to roast a freshly caught fish by holding it up to the sun. Upon his death, one of his bones was used as a bridge to span a river. Attempting to destroy an Israelite camp, mighty Og ripped up a mountain six miles long at its base and bore it on his head on the trek towards the camp. Fortunately Moses, a comparative sprat merely ten cubits tall, jumped high into the air to strike Og on his forty-five foot high ankle with a ten-cubit long axe, thus felling and ultimately slaying his foe.1

Although the Jewish legendary material regarding the huge size of Og and Moses are clearly
midrashic
in nature, the Bible makes no bones about the existence of giants in the ancient world, both in
the antediluvian world
and afterwards. As Moses said in
Genesis 6:4,
"There were giants in the earth in those days; and also afterwards". Giants have plagued Earth since the very earliest times, and the earliest known records of giants in the Earth come from the land of the Bible: the ancient Near East.

A map of the ancient Near East. The ancient Near East was a culturally defined region roughly centered around the area between the rivers Nile and Euphrates, currently defined by the countries of Greece on the northwest, Iran (Persia) on the northeast, Saudi Arabia on the southeast, and Egypt on the southwest. Cultural references in the Bible also refer to lands as far north as Russia, as far south as Ethiopia, as far east as Afghanistan and as far west as Spain.
Image from
Studylight.org (Map 6a)

Save perhaps Plato's accounts of the
titans
 the giant sons of Poseidon who founded
ancient Atlantis
 the oldest known records of giants come from that region of the world known as the ancient Near East, generally considered to be the cradle of known civilization. The ancient Near East as we know it today encompassed a region that is generally centered around the area between the rivers Nile and Euphrates  the area that God had promised to Abraham and his descendants forever.
(Gen. 15:18) 
and stretches as far east as Afghanistan and as far west as Greece.

The earliest references to giants occur in the very earliest times in Earth's history, before even the time of Adam when, it was believed by some, a "pre-Adamic race" walked the Earth. This race, which was apparently gigantic in stature, was created by a mysterious group of divine beings who had come down from heaven and had artificially manipulated the genes of the various kinds of animal life that God had created in order to create a humanoid lifeform of gigantic stature that displayed numerous animal characteristics. These were the class of giants known as the
"pre-Adamites".

As was discussed at length in
Part III
of our
Atlantis
series,
the origins of man
do not appear to be as clear-cut as some might want to believe. It is easy to say that Adam was the first human being, created by God, from whom the rest of mankind originated, and that's that  end of story. However, though no one disputes that God created Adam, the first homo sapiens, there is some dispute as to whether or not homo sapiens was in fact the first type of human on this planet. Significant evidence of the existence of a race before Adam, a

Adam and Eve tempted by "the serpent", typically characterized by artists as Satan in a semi-serpentine form. Some argue that
"the serpent"
was actually one of the fallen angels, or possibly even one of the pre-Adamic race that the fallen angels are believed to have created,
and that "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" was actually symbolic of a strand of DNA, DNA that was unique to this pre-Adamic
race.
This interpretation is called "Temptation and Fall" Michelangelo's classic version of the fall of man taken from the Sistine Chapel.
Image from
University of Pennsylvania: The Temptation of Adam and Eve: Images

"pre-Adamic race",
exists both in religious and historical texts and in
the fossil record.
In fact, numerous forms of proto-human have been discovered, including such notables as
homo neanderthalis
and
homo erectus,
each showing a small improvement over the previous form. And each of these races of proto humans appeared suddenly in the fossil record, almost as if they had been manufactured.

These races, all of which preceded or were contemporaneous with homo sapiens, we will therefore henceforth refer to generically as homo artificialis  genetically manufactured mankind. Artificialis, instead of being created out of whole cloth as was homo sapiens, appears to have been woven together through a process of genetic experimentation  patched together from various different pre-existing animal species.2 The
DNA
of existing animal species was spliced together with that of other species by these divine beings in order to create a breed of human that possessed the specific characteristics that they desired. Meddling with God's Creation, these divine beings  whom we shall henceforth refer to as "fallen angels"  apparently created homo artificialis as a sort of "vehicle" through which they could operate in order to interact with the material world. Though these fallen angels had originally been sent to Earth merely to watch over the Creation, according to the Bible, the Book of Enoch and related texts, these angels fell from grace, disobeying their divinely mandated boundary of "look, don't touch", and got personally involved. Moreover, not only did they get involved in the world, they got very involved in the world, taking things into their own hands into order to reform God's Creation into a form that better suited their wishes, giving themselves physical means through which they could fashion earthly destinies for themselves contrary to what God had originally intended.
Coming down to Earth, the fallen angels, led by the demons Semjaza and Azazel, divided up Earth amongst themselves, a rule that continues to this day.3

DNA:
The Tree of Life? If so, this bit of information may revolutionize our understanding of Genesis 3, the Bible ... and human history.
Image from
Robert Finkbeiner Illustrations

In order to stop the despoilment of His creation by these rebellious "lesser gods", the fallen angels,
YHWH created homo sapiens
to supplant and eventually destroy their abhorrent offspring that were running rampant all over His Creation.
YHWH, according to the book of Genesis, created perfect homo sapiens mankind in His own perfect image. He then placed Adam in a perfect environment  the "Garden of Eden". Adam had been specially designed for the Garden, and the Garden had been specially designed for Adam  both were designed to be in perfect
shalom
balance with the other. There Adam and his wife, Eve, had they remained loyal to YHWH, would have been fruitful, multiplied, and subdued the Earth, slowly but surely turning the whole Earth into an Edenic paradise. Moreover, in the process of slowly but surely subduing the Earth, they would also have
slowly but surely supplanted and destroyed
the accursed artificialis strains.

However, their perfect walk with God was stopped when a "serpent" tempted them to eat the "fruit" of a "tree" that had been forbidden to them.
(Genesis 2-3)
Though most interpreters believe that this tree was a literal tree and the sin of eating the fruit was simply the sin of disobeying God's directive, another more meaningful explanation is that the tree they were forbidden to eat from was in fact symbolic of a variant type of DNA. In this scenario, Adam and Eve as homo sapiens represented a pristine form of DNA, symbolized by the "Tree of Life", as opposed to the patchwork DNA of the pre-Adamites, homo artificialis, that was symbolized by the "Tree of Knowledge". "The Fall" then, was not just a breaking of trust with YHWH, though that was certainly part of it. The Fall was caused by the intermarriage between Adam and Eve and their descendants and the mysterious pre-Adamic race, the result being that the genetic purity of homo sapiens was compromised.

In short, the new homo sapiens, which had been intended to replace the old homo artificialis, instead of replacing it, instead merged with it and thus actually helped in its continuance. As a result, Adam and Eve's descendants  save a chosen few  lost their genetically pure status, becoming corrupted by the DNA of the giant artificialis that they were intended to replace, and YHWH's strategy of gradually phasing out the pre-Adamites was nullified. This was the first stage in the ongoing "genetic warfare" between YHWH and the rebels, a war by
proxy
that set the pattern for the rest of human history, where the genetic "seed of the woman" would constantly be battling the genetic "seed of the serpent" for dominion over Earth:

"And I will put enmity
between thee and the woman,
and between thy seed and her seed;
he shall crush thy head,
and thou shalt bruise his heel."(Genesis 3:15)

In stage two of YHWH's genetic war against the giants, from Adam to Noah, "the seed of the woman"  homo sapiens  remained relatively pure for a time. However, after several generations had passed, it became increasingly compromised to the point where pure homo sapiens nearly became extinct. Homo artificialis with its superior size and technological sophistication, quickly gained an upper hand in the genetic "war between the seeds", with dire consequences for all mankind  and even Earth itself.4

Though the evidence for fallen angels interacting with God's Creation before the creation of Adam is still largely speculative from the theological perspective, the evidence for fallen angels tampering with man and his environment after the creation of Adam is fairly substantial. Numerous theologians have pondered over the enigmatic passage in Genesis 6, where a highly unusual and rather chilling event took place:

GENESIS 6:1-4:1 When men began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them,2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose.3 Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not contend with man forever, for he is mortal; his days will be a hundred and twenty years."4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days  and also afterward  when the sons of God went to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.

Whereas some source-critical scholars tend to dismiss Genesis 6 as "a fragment or motif taken from an ancient Near Eastern myth,"5 some even going as far as describing it as a "cracked, erratic boulder" that does not belong in what they perceive as an otherwise homogeneous storyline, others see it as an important stage in the underlying theme of the Old Testament, and perhaps of the entire Bible  that of the war between YHWH and the rebels, described in Genesis 6 as "the sons of God".

Azazel leading the rebel angels to the newly-formed Earth. Variously called "sons of God", "fallen angels", demons and devils, these
beings appear to be a splinter faction from the heavenly host that, in the most ancient times, came to Earth to found kingdoms apart
from the authority of YHWH. Image from
Dore's Illustrations for "Paradise Lost" .

The identity of the "sons of God", mentioned in Genesis 6 as the progenitors of the giants, has been a subject of a significant amount of speculation. Scholars point out that the word "God" in the Old Testament is usually the Hebrew elohim, literally, "gods" in the plural. This has caused no small consternation among scholars who want to reconcile the aggressively monotheistic Yahwistic religion with the frequent usage in the Bible of a divine name that indicates that God is actually a plurality of deities. As Cooke explains, "Any serious investigation of conceptions of God in the Old Testament must deal with recurrent references which suggest a pluralistic conception of deity. Beings other than Yahweh are referred to variously as "sons" or as an "assembly", "council", etc. What do these references mean? Do they refer to divine or to human entities? How are they related to the God of Israel?"6

The arguments regarding the identity of these mysterious "sons of God" generally breaks down into three basic interpretations:

THE 'SONS OF GOD' ARE THE DESCENDANTS OF SETH:
The 'sons of God' are the Sethites (cf.
5:1-3),
while the 'daughters of men' are from the Cainite line. In favor of this view is the division of the human race into two lines of descent in the previous chapters
(4:17-5:32),
but against it are the arguments that since 'man' (ha adam) is used in
verse 1
of mankind generally, it is unlikely to mean only one section of humanity in
verse 2
and that 'sons of God' does not appear as a collective term for the Sethites, either in these chapters or elsewhere.

THE 'SONS OF GOD' ARE HEAVENLY BEINGS:
The 'sons of God' are heavenly beings, who mate with earthly women. In favour of this interpretation is the regular use of the term 'sons of God' for the heavenly court that surrounds Yahweh (e.g.,
Ps. 29:1,
89:7;
Job 1:6).
There is a prima facie case for supposing both the nephilim and gibborim of
verse 4)
are to be regarded as the offspring of such unions, though it has been argued that the structure of verse 4 deliberately affirms the existence of the Nephilim before the unions of
verse 2).
We may leave aside, however, the problem of origin of the Nephilim, and note that the majority of scholarly opinion supports the identification of the 'sons of God' as heavenly beings.

THE 'SONS OF GOD' ARE TOTALITARIAN DESPOTS:
The 'sons of God' are dynastic rulers who, as oriental despots, established royal harems by force or practiced indiscriminate rape. This view has the merit of taking seriously the phrase 'they took for themselves wives from all whom they chose'.... Nevertheless, the identification of the 'sons of God' simply as human rulers has the weakness that it is rarely if ever attested in the ancient Near East as a term for kings in general.7

Michael and the loyal angels defeating "the dragon" Satan and the rebel angels and casting them down from heaven to Earth. Image from Gustave Dore's "A Crowned Virgin: A Vision of John" (Rev. 12)
in
The Dore Bible Illustrations.

Though the other theories have their merits, the clear answer is that the sons of God were (and are) heavenly beings. Theologians are generally in agreement that YHWH is presented in the Bible as the chief God of a pantheon of lesser deities, generically termed "the sons of God". Though most of these divine beings, typically referred to as "angels" in the Bible, remained loyal to YHWH, some opted to rebel against Him and His divine directives. Though it is not clear as to exactly how many of this heavenly host rebelled against YHWH, some speculate, based upon
Revelation 12:3-4,
that as many as one-third of the angels  described symbolically as "stars" in the text  followed Semjaza, Azazel and a group of other powerful angels into rebellion against YHWH: "Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth."
These "fallen stars" are generally considered by theologians to be fallen angels  the same fallen angels who tempted Adam and Eve in the Garden, and have continued to have a malificent effect on mankind ever since.

The "intermarriage" between these fallen angels and the giants continued on unabated thoughout the antediluvian period. Without having given any thought to the consequences such actions might have on YHWH's well-ordered Creation, the fallen angels continued to visit and genetically modify their horrid creations, making improvements in their physical and mental capabilities as well as giving them knowledge and gifts of technology that they could use in their quest to rule the world. These "gifts" included such skills as the ability to develop tools and weapons, read the signs and seasons in the stars, distill medicines from plants, and even use cosmetics to enhance beauty. However, instead of improving the lot of mankind, the fallen angels' worthless gifts of technology actually had the effect of making things worse. As it is described in the Book of Enoch,

And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives, and shields, and breastplates, and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them, and bracelets, and ornaments, and the use of antimony, and the beautifying of the eyelids, and all kinds of costly stones, and all coloring tinctures. And there arose much godlessness, and they committed fornication, and they were led astray, and became corrupt in all their ways. Semjaza taught enchantments, and root-cuttings, Armaros the resolving of enchantments, Baraqijal taught astrology, Kokabel the constellations, Ezeqeel the knowledge of the clouds, Araqiel the signs of the earth, Shamsiel the signs of the sun, and Sariel the course of the moon. And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven.... (1 Enoch 8:1-4)8

The effect of giving mankind technology and methods of manipulating matter, what we now know as "the sciences", merely allowed the wicked giants of old greater ability to further disrupt the shalom of YHWH's formerly well-ordered cosmos. Moreover, the inherent danger of the intermarriage between the human and the divine is that it would result in the creation of a "master race" of super beings with a practically limitless lifespan and superior capabilities that could be used to conquer not only Earth, but possibly even heaven itself. As van Gemeren explains,

The perverted nature of man's thoughts
(6:5)
may be inferred from
(6:3).
Being under God's judgment since the Fall, man made an attempt to circumvent God's plan by being enticed to the Satanic scheme of intermarriage with demonic beings with the hope of ultimate prolongation of life. The resultant super-race, produced by the intermarriage of 'the sons of God' and the daughters of men, is in God's judgment still basar ('characterized by flesh', verse 3). Hence it is also observed that the super-race of the nephilim-gibborim was characterized as belonging to the Earth. To crush the attempt of introducing man into the realms of the divine, God sovereignly and justly judged man to death in the Flood.9

"The Giants Attacking Heaven" by Bernard Picart (1673-1733). In the Greek myths, Zeus and other children of the Titans made war on their
Titan forebears, who had been ruling unjustly in a battle known as the
Titanomachy.
Though Zeus and co. overthrew the titans, the titaness Gaia gave birth to the
giants
in order to take revenge. The giants made war on Zeus and the heavenly gods in a battle known as the
gigantomachy, in which the giants were
utterly defeated. The Nephilim giants of the Bible may have attempted to overthrow heaven as well.
Image from
Greek Mythology Link: Giants

homo artificialis nephili
It is here in Genesis 6 that the giants are first given a name: the nephilim. From the Hebrew root n f l, "to fall", "to come down", or "to be thrown down" depending on the tense of the verb, the word "Nephilim" means, literally, the ones who came down  in this case, to Earth. As Birney explains, "The word "nephilim" occurs only here and in
Numbers 13:33.
In Numbers it is used of the Anakim, who were of great stature. The LXX translates "giants" [gigantes], and other old Greek versions translate "assailants" or "violent men". Various ideas have been tied to the root NPL, to fall, e.g., to fall from heaven (fallen angels)."9

The Nephilim were the gigantic offspring that resulted from the union of the fallen angels and "the daughters of men", that grew to be of a tremendous stature and possessed of a titanic arrogance and will-to-power that rivaled that of their Satanic fathers. As Stephen Quayle explains in his seminal work,
Genesis 6 Giants,

The Nephilim that were produced by the angel/mankind marriage were much different from either of their parents. This, too, went against God's plan for the Earth in which each animal and human being was to reproduce "after its own kind".
[Genesis 1:24]
This is perhaps the best demonstration that the parents of these creatures were not simply descendants of Cain and Seth. Had they been, they would have produced human offspring, rather than the Nephilim. The Nephilim were more than simply large beings or giants in the way giants are normally thought of today. When the Greek Septuagint was created, the Hebrew word Nephilim was translated into Greek as gegenes. This is the same word used in Greek mythology for the "Titans", creatures created through the interbreeding of the Greek gods and human beings. The English words "genes" and "genetics" are built around the same root word as gegenes; genea meaning "breed" or "kind". Thus, the choice of this word again suggests a genetic component to the creation of these giants.10

Though Quayle appears to promote the idea that the Nephilim were actually formed by combining the DNA of the fallen angels and human women, since angels are spirit and thus do not have DNA, we hold to the thesis that the Nephilim were genetically manufactured beings created from the genetic material of various pre-existing animal species. Thus, to fit them into our scientific paradigm, we should officially term the Nephilim as a subclass of homo artificialis: homo artificialis nephili.

Thus, the fallen angels did not personally interbreed with the daughters of men, but used their godlike intellect to delve into the secrets of YHWH's Creation and manipulate it to their own purposes. And the key to creating or recreating man, as we have (re)discovered in the twentieth century, is the
human genome  DNA. Quayle points out that the Greek antecedent of the word "giants" is the word gegenes, from which was derived the Greek word gigantes (Genesis 6:4, LXX), from which we in turn derive the English word "giant". Moreover, gegenes, besides being the root of the word "giant", is also the root of the words "genes", "genetics", "geneology", and so forth. Thus, the concept of genetic manipulation was "spliced in" to the ancient conception of giants.
Quayle's extensive research on the subject also has unearthed some frightening scientific statistics:

While modern ethics has prevented scientists from pursuing eugenics (the creation of more perfect "supermen" by modifying human genetic components), it is completely possible that modifications in human genetic components might create a very different being from human DNA. A hint of what might result from such a modification was seen in April 1997, when scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore revealed that they had discovered a gene in mice which they called growth/differentiation factor-8 (GDF-8). When mice cells were altered genetically to delete this gene, the creatures that were conceived from these altered eggs grew enormous muscles, becoming "super mice" for all practical purposes. The scientists wrote in the science journal
Nature, "We disrupted the GDF-8 gene by gene targeting in mice. [Mice lacking the gene] are significantly larger than wild-type animals and show a large and widespread increase in skeletal muscle mass. Individual muscles of mutant animals weigh two to three times more than those of wild-type animals." Now notice that this again goes well beyond what would be seen if the animals were simply given a growth hormone. These animals, with the GDF-8 gene, were not only stronger, they were two to three times larger. In other words, the super mice were stronger and considerably larger than their natural brothers and sisters having an unaltered genetic makeup. Imagine a human being so altered, who is stronger and two or three times larger than an average person, and you'll see the modern equivalent of the ancient giants, the "mighty men" of the biblical accounts.11

Quayle also points out that the giants did not suffer from a hormonal imbalance, commonly known today as
"gigantism", as those who suffer from gigantism usually suffer from a number of debilitative diseases that make movement for them difficult and painful. This is quite different from the powerful, proportionally built, athletically superb warriors portrayed in the Bible and other ancient texts.
So, according to Quayle, there is definitive proof that genetic manipulation can in fact result in the development of a gigantic version of a particular species  in this case, mice. But can the same thing be done with humans? We may know soon.

The rabbinic literature also confirms that the Nephilim were indeed a giant, wicked species of early mankind that had existed before the Flood, and also afterward, during the time of Moses. Newman explains,

Regarding the "Nephilim", the rabbis apparently used
Num 13:33,
where the term is associated with the Anakim at the time of the Exodus. With this hint and the aid of
Deut. 2:10-11,
20-21,
they obtained five other names for the Nephilim by which to describe them using etymological word-play. Two of these are rather supernatural sounding: "Gibborim: ... the marrow of each one's thigh bone was eighteen cubits long"; "Anakim: ... their necks reached the globe of the sun." The term "Nephilim" is understood as teaching that "they hurled (haphilu) the world down, themselves fell (nephelu) from the world, and filled the world with abortions (nephilim) through their immorality.12

As Newman points out, several subclasses of Nephilim appear to have existed before the Flood, and also afterwards. One of those that existed before the Flood were the "Gibborim", the "mighty men of old".

homo artificialis nephilim gibbori
The "Gibborim" were the "heroes of old, men of renown" mentioned in Genesis 6, who were the offspring of the Nephilim. As Newman explains, "In
Gen 6:4nephilim is translated gigantes without textual variation. The Greek word, usually rendered "giant", indicates a warrior of large stature and translates gibbor in
Gen 10:8, 9".13
The Nephilim, as well as being genetically modified by the fallen angels, apparently procreated amongst themselves at the same time, as well as procreating with homo sapiens, resulting in the creation of a subclass of giants known as the gibborim. Not quite as tall as the Nephilim  who were likely giants among giants, dozens, perhaps hundreds of feet tall, if the midrash are to be believed  the Gibborim were probably more the size of Goliath, in the 8-12 feet tall range. To aid in differentiating the various different types of giants mentioned in the Bible, we will classify this type of homo artificialis nephili / homo sapiens hybrid as homo artificialis nephilim gibbori, "Gibborim" for short.

The intermarriage between the semi-divine Nephilim, the Cainites and, eventually even the Sethites led to the near-extinction of the pure Adamic line of homo sapiens, where all but a few living on Earth near the end of the antediluvian period were actually this mixed-breed of Gibborim. As DeLoach explains in his classic,
Giants: A Reference Guide from History, the Bible, and Recorded Legend,

Right down to the first day of the deluge, the fallen angels in evolved human flesh, whom Moses called "the Nephilim", kept on marrying the comely daughters descended from Adam. These unlawful unions, having grown exceedingly common, now posed the gravest threat to God's plan for the redemption of His people. The situation was this: by absolute necessity, the Almighty Angel of the Lord who promised to come and redeem the fallen Adamic family had to be born from pure stock. But over the centuries the two races had so completely integrated that Nephilim blood now "polluted" virtually all Adam's offspring. In Noah's time, the condition reached the crisis stage, as commentator H.B. Pratt explains, "There are, for example, those who suppose here, just as in the case of the wife of Cain, that there were two distinct races of men in the world, the Adamic and the Pre-Adamic  a race perhaps half bestial; the mixture of which two races caused the moral desolations that are mentioned; and that when the Hebrew text says ... that 'Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations', [it means] that he was of pure stock and uncontaminated."14

Though the mixed-breed Gibborim were superior in most every way to homo sapiens,
superior ability breeds superior ambition.15
A world full of Alexanders, Hitlers, and Genghis Khans, all of whom were physically superior to Arnold Schwartzenegger, intellectually superior to Albert Einstein, and more Machiavellian than
Machiavelli,
will not stay peaceful for long.
The intermarriage between the Nephilim, the Cainites and, eventually even the Sethites led to an extreme condition of lawlessness and ungodliness in the world which YHWH found intolerable. DeLoach continues,

Besides mongrelizing Adam's family, the intermarriages boded another great ill. For the more the two races commingled the more Adam's children fell under the Nephilim's bad influences. They not only adopted the riotous ways of these rebels against heaven, but they likewise gave themselves over to their own carnal appetites and pursued worldly pleasures without restraint. And so it happened that most humans still sank to the depths of moral and spiritual depravity. But those few who deplored what the world was coming to had not seen the worst yet. For when these created and evolved peoples copulated, many of the children born to them grew to astonishing sizes. Having bodies that were part animal and part man, these insolent, boastful fellows exhibited far greater physical strength than other mortals. Thus endowed, war naturally became their main occupation and plundering their neighbors a way of life. As exceedingly evil as their Nephilim fathers were, the Gibborim easily surpassed them. Indeed, with the appearance of these ungodly, gigantic beings, wickedness and violence in the earth brimmed over. Because of them, moreover, the whole order of the creation was rapidly being subverted.15

The shalom peaceful balance of the Garden of Eden was destroyed by the tyrannical and warlike methods employed by the Nephilim. Instead of wealth earned by honest toil, the Nephilim, and their horrid children, the Gibborim, plundered the wealth of others and heaped it up in vast hordes for the purposes of conspicuous consumption, gorging while others starved. Despising hard work and God's institution of marriage life, the Gibborim sought only for temporary pleasures, achieving their goals through merciless murder, plunder and rapine. Instead of loving their neighbors and working together with them for the common good, they instead sought to enslave them if they were of use to them, or destroy them if they were not. In these ways, the Nephilim echoed in their Godless actions their divine parents' rejection of YHWH's ordinances. As Kline explains, "Within this succession of the bene elohim, the marriage ordinance was desecrated and the extension of dominion was sought by violence rather than through godly labor".16 The Gibborim created no wealth, and added no value to the natural equation. They were simply giant parasites living off of the work of others, and off of nature itself. Moreover, by taking any wives they chose from both artificialis and sapiens, creating vast harems of women that bore only their children, they reduced the ability of Godly men  whose presence was beneficial to Earth  to procreate and continue. In this way the Gibborim multiplied like a virus at the expense of the host: wasting resources, killing off healthy cells, and spreading poisons all over the face of Earth. In the end, using their techniques of murder, plunder, and rapine, homo artificialis systematically subverted and destroyed homo sapiens.

Though on the face of it it might seem that homo artificialis had won the genetic "arms race" and thus proved themselves the superior species, had the Gibborim won and wiped out homo sapiens forever, they would have eventually disappeared as well. Without homo sapiens to exploit, they would have quickly turned on and destroyed each other, destroying all life on Earth in the process. Their need to dominate and destroy came out of the essential emptiness of their souls, which they sought in vain to fill with earthly pleasures. However, the more they stole, the emptier their souls became, and they had to conquer and plunder more and more to fill the emptiness inside them until all life on Earth was in peril of being destroyed. And even if they had conquered the whole world, they still would have lost their souls. Clines aptly describes this hyperaggressive tendency of the Gibborim as "an insane acceleration of the Fall; it is self-affirmation to the point of destruction."17 Without the stable, productive presence of homo sapiens, the Gibborim would have had no one to plunder and enslave. Without the preservative, "salt and light" influence of God's people, the Gibborim would have flown into a frenzy of conquest and destruction (which, just before the Flood, is exactly what they did). Thus, by systematically eliminating homo sapiens, homo artificialis guaranteed its own extinction  proving that it was, in fact, inferior.

A representation of a black hole in the process of devouring a star. The black hole is a tiny singularity perhaps no larger than the size of a grapefruit, the remnant of a burned out star whose gravity was so great that it collapsed in on itself. Now, it continues its existence devouring other stars, making a spectacular show at the expense of destroying something useful. The light you see here is the remains of a star that the black hole is devouring, swirling around the powerful gravity of the black hole that sits at the center, giving the illusion that the black hole is giving off light, whereas it actually devouring it. All in all, the black hole is a fitting metaphor for the fallen angels and their worthless offspring, the Nephilim.
Image from
NASA's Starchild page.
Click
here
to view the video.

The worthless Gibborim created nothing of value, and destroyed everything of value that they touched. Like black holes devouring light-giving stars, these living dead devoured all life and light wherever they went, consuming everything and returning nothing. Well did
Jude
describe them and their latter-day relations when he described them as "shepherds who feed only themselves. They are clouds without rain, blown along by the wind; autumn trees, without fruit and uprooted  twice dead. They are wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shame; wandering stars, for whom blackest darkness has been reserved forever."
(Jude 1:12-13)

The main reason homo artificialis failed and had to be destroyed was that it was
out of balance
with its environment. The appetites of the giants were so immense that in order to feed themselves and satisfy their lusts they were forced to
conquer and plunder others,
and in the process they destroyed the people and infrastructure required to create these resources. Moreover, they paid no attention to their environment, cutting down whole forests, exhausting Earth's natural resources, and polluting the lakes, rivers, and even the genes of men and animals in order to accomplish their pointless goal of dominating Earth. But of what use is Earth if, in the process of conquering it, you have destroyed it? In contrast, homo sapiens had been created to fit into the Earthly environment, to reap and sow according to the seasons, to acquire wealth through hard work, and not plunder  to maintain a harmonious balance with nature, taking only as much as he needed, and returning the rest. Had Adam and his progeny continued on with this strategy, the entire Earth would have eventually been turned into an Edenic paradise. However, by rejecting YHWH and His shalom strategy of gradually reproducing and slowly but surely subduing Earth, instead being tempted into following the vainglorious conquest strategy taught by the Nephilim, Adam and Eve also became subject to the same natural laws that the Nephilim had broken. By going for the short term gains brought by the methods used by the Nephilim, mankind upset the delicate balance with Earth that was necessary to be truly successful over the long term. As a result, mankind was punished by the very Earth that they had set out to conquer, as Earth rebalanced itself, and vomited them out  with the Flood. (Cf.
Leviticus 18:24-28)
As Hendel explains,

Gen 6:1-4 presents a mixing of categories  of gods and mortals  and the procreation of a hybrid category of demigods which it is in the nature of the myth to suppress. Mary Douglas has pointed out the preoccupation of ancient Israelite thought with the suppression of anomaly in dietary laws and in the laws of kinship. These "purity laws", as she calls them, serve to keep "distinct the categories of creation." The same tendency is at work in Genesis 6:1-4. The sexual mingling of the sons of God and the daughters of men creates an imbalance and a confusion in the cosmic order. The birth of the demigods threatens the fabric of the cosmos.... The natural conclusion of Gen 6:1-4, according to the logic of the myth, is the deluge  the destruction of humanity and the concomitant annihilation of the disorder. The cosmic imbalance is resolved by a great destruction, out of which a new order arises.18

LUCIFER IN STARLIGHT
ON a starr'd night Prince Lucifer uprose.
Tired of his dark dominion swung the fiend
Above the rolling ball in cloud part screen'd,
Where sinners hugg'd their spectre of repose.
Poor prey to his hot fit of pride were those.
And now upon his western wing he lean'd,
Now his huge bulk o'er Afric's sands careen'd,
Now the black planet shadow'd Arctic snows.
Soaring through wider zones that prick'd his scars
With memory of the old revolt from Awe,
He reach'd a middle height, and at the stars,
Which are the brain of heaven, he look'd, and sank.
Around the ancient track march'd, rank on rank,
The army of unalterable law.

In conclusion, in stage two of the genetic "proxy" warfare between YHWH and the rebels, from Adam to Noah, the rebels won the battles, but lost the war. In order to destroy the Nephilim and the accursed Gibborim and restore the shalom natural balance between God, man, and Earth, God sent the Great Flood to wipe the slate clean. In order to restore the balance, YHWH was forced to destroy all life on Earth, most of which had become either genetically tainted, polluted, or otherwise rendered unusable. As a result of the Flood, all of the work the fallen angels had done to either corrupt or destroy homo sapiens had been rendered useless, and their vain attempt to raise an army in order to storm heaven was thwarted. But all was not lost. YHWH had saved one genetically pure man of the line of Seth, Noah, along with his three sons and their wives, and a sampling of untainted animal species.
(Genesis 6:9-9:17)
In effect, though the sons of Seth had lost the battles, YHWH had won the war. Fulfilling the prophecy of
Genesis 3:15,
the heel of the man had been bruised, but the head of the serpent had been crushed.

As world war raged across the planet, the Nephilim masters and their Gibborim armies fighting the final battles against each other to decide who would finally rule Earth, Noah obeyed YHWH and shut the doors on the antediluvian world. Soon thereafter, the world that was, died. However, though the Flood wiped out all of the Nephilim and Gibborim, their progenitors  the fallen angels who cannot die  watched and waited for the time when they could start the next phase of the great genetic war again.

Though the giants of old had been destroyed, their fathers, the fallen angels, had not. As a result, as soon as the waters receded, the "mystery of iniquity" began once more. Phase three of the war between YHWH and the rebels actually began just after Noah and his family left the ark, in a controversial event that resulted in the cursing of the line of Canaan, one of the sons of Ham, the son of Noah.
(Genesis 9:18-27)
In this event, Noah, who had been drinking wine from his vineyard in an apparent attempt to help fulfill YHWH's command to repopulate Earth, passed out in his tent in an unseemly position. Ham, one of Noah's three sons, saw his father's nakedness, and apparently handled the situation quite inappropriately. So inappropriately, in fact, that Noah laid a curse on Ham's son Canaan, setting up what some scholars refer to as "the Canaanite theme"  a theme that was to play an important role in the rest of the Old Testament.

Scholars are greatly divided on this issue, though it appears that all agree that the action was sexual in nature. Allen P. Ross in his article, "The Curse of Canaan" points out that "Ham, represented most clearly to Israel by the Egyptians and Canaanites, acted wrongly in violating sexual customs regarded as sacred and a result had one line of his descendants cursed with subjugation." Ham and his son, Canaan, were labeled with the brand of "pervert" and were utilized in the narrative of Genesis to show that the Canaanites were sexual perverts from the very beginning and thus deserved to be destroyed.19

The Canaanites, along with the Egyptians and, generally speaking, all of the descendants of Ham
(Genesis 10:6-20)
were portrayed throughout the Bible as being morally and ethically wicked. The Canaanites, however, were described as being particularly wicked, as Noah had foreseen when he laid the curse specifically on Canaan. And as history unfolds, it becomes clear that Noah's curse had been correct, as Canaan's line became the line through whom the fallen angels would once again work their iniquity. As a result of this wickedness, the Canaanites, who inhabited "the land of Canaan" on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, were painted in the Bible as being irretrievably corrupt and marked for destruction.

YHWH knew that it was only a matter of time until Canaan's wickedness would need to be dealt with, and this turned out to be true. After the time of the Flood (ca. 10,000 b.c.), the mystery of iniquity worked for 8,000 years, bringing Earth to the point where conditions once again had begun to resemble those that had led to the need for the Great Flood. In order to put an end to the mystery of iniquity, YHWH raised up Abraham, a pure descendant of righteous Shem. Abraham was YHWH's special representative, whom he would use to destroy the wicked descendants of Canaan, giving to Abraham's descendants the land of Canaan as their special inheritance:

13And he said unto Abram, Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years;
14And also that nation [Egypt], whom they shall serve, will I judge: and afterward shall they come out with great substance.
15And thou shalt go to thy fathers in peace; thou shalt be buried in a good old age.
16But in the fourth generation they shall come hither again [back to the land of Canaan]: for the iniquity of the Amorites is not yet full.
17And it came to pass, that, when the sun went down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace, and a burning lamp that passed between those pieces.
18In the same day the LORD made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates
(Genesis 15:13-18)

But why did YHWH plan to destroy the Canaanites and give their land to Abraham's descendants? Because the fallen angels were once again at work on Earth, using the Canaanites to breed a whole new generation of Nephilim and Gibborim giants.
And the fallen angels, like YHWH, also had their own special representative  Amor, a descendant of Canaan. Amor, the father of the "Amorites", became the most wicked of all, the line though whom the fallen angels had begun recreating the dreaded Nephilim in the land of Canaan. Thus, while YHWH was breeding men of the line of Shem that were more and more righteous, the fallen angels were breeding men of the line of Ham that were more and more wicked  just as they had before the Flood. For this reason YHWH forbad Abraham to tarry in Canaan, instead planning for his descendants to sojourn in Egypt for 400 years. This allowed the "iniquity of the Amorites" to come to its full, rotten ripeness while Abraham's descendants grew strong and numerous in a safer, healthier environment away from Canaan.

The fallen angels were busily at work creating all new armies of wicked giants that they would once again use to try to conquer the world. And though their extreme moral decline was only in its infant stages during the time of Abraham, it was just a matter of time until this "iniquity of the Amorites" would come to the full.

Phase three of the war between YHWH and the rebels, which began soon after Noah and his family left the ark, ca. 10,000 b.c., did not come to fruition until the time of Abraham, ca. 2000 b.c. Though some commentators believe that
Nimrod,
one of the descendants of Ham,
(Gen. 10:8-12)
was a giant, giants do not make a significant appearance in the Bible again until
Genesis 14, during the time of Abraham's sojourn in Canaan. Genesis 14 describes a major regional conflict between the king of Elam and five of his vassals who lived in the land of Canaan, a war in which Abraham played a small part. Chedorlaomer, the king of Elam, had gathered together three of his allies and gone to war with this confederation of five Canaanite kings who had refused to pay tribute any longer:

1And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations;
2That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar.
3All these were joined together in the vale of Siddim, which is the salt sea.
4Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled.
5And in the fourteenth year came Chedorlaomer, and the kings that were with him, and smote the Rephaims in Ashteroth Karnaim, and the Zuzims in Ham, and the Emims in Shaveh Kiriathaim,
6And the Horites in their mount Seir, unto Elparan, which is by the wilderness.
7And they returned, and came to Enmishpat, which is Kadesh, and smote all the country of the Amalekites, and also the Amorites, that dwelt in Hazezontamar.
8And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim;
9With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five.
10And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain.
11And they took all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah, and all their victuals, and went their way.
(Genesis 14:1-11)

Though the theme of the passage is a familiar one, war, some of the participants in that war were not. Though the war was initially supposed to be against the five kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim and Zoar, instead of taking these kings head-on, the Elamites and their allies instead began their attack far to the northeast, in the region of Bashan, and then worked their way down the east side of the Jordan, systematically destroying a heretofore unknown group of peoples called the Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, and Horim. They then turned to attack the Amalekites and Amorites, finally heading towards their initial target, the five kings of the five cities of the plain in southern Canaan. Hamilton explains,

The names of other peoples whom the Elamites and their allies subdued  Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim, Horim, Amalekites, Amorites  would indicate that the uprising of the five southern kinglets was but one part of a massive effort to resist continued Mesopotamian control in Transjordan. The invading kings repress such attempted revolts in grandiose and unmitigated style. Nobody can stand before them, even though the defeated Rephaim, Zuzim, and Emim are themselves imposing threats, people of giant stature.
(Deut. 2:10-12,
20-23)20

The distribution of Rephaim and Gibborim-type giant subclasses in Canaan, ca. 2000 b.c. Though the distribution of the various giant
classes and exact territorial limits are unknown, general areas of inhabitation can be derived from
Genesis 14
and
Deuteronomy 2-3.
The Rephaim dominated most of south, central and northern Palestine, but the Zuzim dominated the region south of the Rephaim
capitol Ashteroth Karnaim, with the Emim east of the Dead Sea and the Horim south of the Emim and east of the Vale of Siddim. Moses
also mentions the "Avvim" that were centered around Gaza, southwest of Palestine, but there is no record of an Elamite attack on the
Avvim. Chedorlaomer first attacked Ashteroth-Karnaim, the stronghold of the Rephaim, then proceeded to defeat the Zuzim at Ham,
the Emim at Shaveh-Kiriathaim, and the Horim in their mountain strongholds scattered throughout Seir. They then subdued the
Amalekites just south of Palestine, defeated the Amorite armies in Hazazon-Tamar, and destroyed the confederation of the five
kings of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, and Zoar at the Vale of Siddim, south of the Dead Sea. Having thus subdued the entire
country, the Elamites then plundered all of the five cities in succession, taking away a very large amount of booty.
Click
here
to view a larger image.

But why did they make the strategic decision of attacking these unknown peoples before approaching their main target? DeLoach explains, "Somehow, perhaps from spies, Chedorlaomer learned of the miliary alliance that the five cities had made with the giants who occupied Bashan, Gilead, and Edom. He thus chose not to strike the first blow at Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboiim, or Bela, but moved instead to cut off help from their Rephaim neighbors".21 The giants were powerful warriors, and had to be divided and conquered, as a combined army of giants and men would have sorely pressed even the superb Elamite forces. If they had attacked the five kings directly, they would have been surrounded on all sides by armies of giants, which might have led to their complete annihilation. Instead, they wisely pursued a "divide and conquer" strategy, starting with the Rephaim in the north, and working their way down to the Horim in the south:

Sweeping down the valley, his army quickly laid siege to Ashteroth Karnaim. This chief city of the Rephaim lay in the district of Bashan, about six miles northwest of Edrei. These giants worshipped Astarte, the goddess of the crested moon. They were greatly decimated. Continuing along what the ancients called the King's Highway, a trade route that ran the entire length of the Trans-jordanian plateau to the Gulf of Aqabah, Chedorlaomer and his confederate kings next fell upon the enormous Zamzummim people of Ham. Some archaeologists identify this city with modern Ham, which is located in eastern Gilead, about four miles south of Irbid. After this, the kings from Elam and Mesopotamia attacked and cut off the terrible Emim giants at nearby Shaveh Kiriathaim. These people, described as "great and many and tall", occupied the land that the Moabites later took.22

The mysterious Rephaim, Zuzim, Emim and Horim were, in fact, giants. Giants were again on Earth in the time of Abraham, and YHWH was waging war upon them once more, using the Elamites  like Abraham, descendants of Shem  to destroy them. These mysterious giant races are described in much more detail than the Nephilim and Gibborim of the antediluvian world were, and are even given race-specific names, as follows:

homo artificialis rephi
The Rephaim were the next generation of giants, the "new Nephilim", and were of Amorite descent. The fallen angels had chosen one of the line of Canaan, Amor, to use as the line through which they would once again begin to genetically modify mankind towards the creation of a new race of supermen. However, whereas nephilim, the term used to describe the half-divine, half-human demigods of the antediluvian world, straightforwardly translates into "those who came down", the exact meaning of the term rephaim is not as clear, as the term is used for a variety of purposes, both in the Bible and in related texts. L'Heureux gives an excellent summary of the state of the debate in his excellent monograph,
Rank among the Canaanite Gods: El, Ba'al and the Rephaim:

The relevant data are the following: the occurrence of 1) rephaim, meaning the shades of the dead; the occurrence of 2) rephaim, referring to a gigantic race which inhabited parts of Palestine and Jordan before Israelite times; references to yelidiy ha-raphah (with variants) who are usually understood as descendants of Raphah, who would be the ancestor of the Rephaim; a geographical name, "Valley of the Rephaim;" personal names containing the element rapha or raphah,. In addition to the above, there are related matters which might be relevant: references to the Anaqim who, like Rephaim, were thought to be a prehistoric race of gigantic stature; appearing only twice are the Emim, apparently a special designation for the Rephaim of the territory later occupied by the Moabites; similarly the Zamzummim are the Rephaim of the Ammonite area; finally, the word Nephilim is also used for the giants of old.23

In the Ras Shamra texts found in the Canaanite city-state of Ugarit, the Rephaim are described as being simultaneously divine beings, human beings, cultic functionaries of the Amorite god Ba'al, mighty warriors, riders of chariots, and healers, or "ones who are healed". Some scholars also believe that that they were part of an aristocracy. The Amorites, who worshiped the god Ba'al, also believed that Ba'al was gigantic in stature: "Ba'lu the Saviour, was extremely tall. An Ugaritic myth tells us that when another god tried to sit on the throne of Ba'lu 'his feet did not reach the foot-stool, his head did not reach the top of the back.'"24

Ba'al was the Amorite/Canaanite war, storm and fertility god, whom they believed made his presence known in, among other things, the yearly rains that came and made the fields bring forth their bounty each year. When the rains ended at the end of the rainy season, it was thought that Ba'al had died and gone down to the underworld, not to return again until the rainy season in the following year. During the intervening time, he remained in the underworld, among the spirits of the dead. The Rephaim were believed by the Amorites to be Ba'als acolytes, accompanying him both in the storm and into his journey into the underworld after the rains ceased. As a result, "since these minor deities follow Ba'al in his descent to the underworld, they later became identified with the shades of the dead, as in Biblical Hebrew and in Phoenician."25
L'Heureux points out that, since greater gods in the Canaanite pantheon are described with the singular term rapha, then the term rephaim most likely refers to an assembly of lesser gods. This concept compares favorably with the Hebrew conception of elohim which most believe is meant to indicate an assembly of divine beings, or angels, in contrast to the singular El, which is used exclusively of YHWH, the head of the divine assembly. In short, Rapha is to rephaim as El is to elohim.26

However, unlike the heavenly deities of the court of YHWH, the court of Ba'al is instead an assembly of underworld deities, what the Israelites would have considered demonic spirits, or fallen angels. The Amorites worshiped these underworld deities as the departed spirits of their ancestors, and their funerary rituals were also acts of worship that included such activities as extreme drunkenness, riotous acts, cannibalism and worse.27
The spirits of the dead that were most worshiped were those of ancient kings and heroes: "within the framework of the Baalistic cult sacrificial meals with the spirits of the dead took place ... the ghosts are called metim "dead" or shedim "genii". One of the more interesting features of the text is that the rephaim seem to be a special class of spirits: kings, heroes, warriors, rulers."28
Concerning the meaning of rapha and how it fits into the concept of underworld deity, Gray believes that the basic meaning of rapha is "to heal" or, more likely, to be healed.29 However, since it has to do with the dead rephaim, and since these dead rephaim are, along with Ba'al, resurrected at the beginning of each rainy season, I suggest that the Rephaim are not merely healed but, along with Ba'al, resurrected, and the fertility of the land resurrected with them. Thus the basic concept behind the word rephaim is "those who have been resurrected".

The rephaim deities of the Ugaritic texts, then, were seen as the resurrected spirits of ancient warrior kings. But resurrected into what? And how does this apply to the Rephaim giants? The Rephaim were seen by the Amorites as both divine and human, as human incarnations of the divine rephaim, just as the Amorite king was considered to be the incarnation of their state god, Ba'al.30
These "Rephaim of Earth" were believed to be the earthly incarnations of the divine (or fallen) Rephaim of the underworld. Moreover, since these were the spirits of ancient warriors, kings and heroes from ancient times, it was probable, since the Rephaim giants were specifically noted by Moses as being the return of the antediluvian Nephilim, that the Rephaim were in fact the reincarnations of the demonic spirits of the Nephilim giants who had been destroyed in the Flood. Thus, inherent in the very name "Rephaim" was the confirmation that the Rephaim were indeed the return of the Nephilim. As such, we have given them their own scientific classification to identify the Rephaim as the next generation that succeeded the Nephilim breed of giants: homo artificialis rephi.

In sum, then, according to the Bible and related texts, the Rephaim were a giant, human/divine hybrid race that formed an aristocratic warrior class known for their use of
chariots
in battle, a "master race" of giant warrior-kings that were worshiped as the reincarnated spirits of the giant antediluvian god-kings, the Nephilim.31 They served the Amorite king who was considered the incarnation of the Amorite high god Ba'al, who was also gigantic in stature, probably larger than the rest. This king likely ruled from Ashteroth-Karnaim, in the region of Bashan, in northeastern Canaan. These giant god-kings ruled over a mass of homo sapiens, whom the fallen angels were systematically altering into another class of Gibborim "storm troopers" in order to, once again, attempt to exterminate the "inferior" homo sapiens and rule the world. These Gibborim even had specific names: the Zuzim, the Emim, the Horim, and the Avvim.

homo artificialis rephaim zuzi
The Zuzim were a Gibborim subclass of the Rephaim, the result of interbreeding between the Rephaim and homo sapiens. The resultant
"Zuzim"
(Gen. 14:5)
were probably 8-10 feet tall on average, a few feet shorter than the Rephaim, some of whom probably approached 12 feet in height or more.
Moses described the Zuzim as "Zamzummims"
Deut. 2:19-21
that had once lived east of the Jordan River. They had been seriously depopulated by Chedorlaomer around 2000 b.c., but had been exterminated by the Ammonites somewhere betweeen 2000-1300 b.c. "Zamzummim" can mean either "murmurers" or "stammerers", and seems to indicate that they may have been involved in some sort of necromantic activity. Pope explains,
"The designation Zamzummim is probably to be related to Arabic zamzam which is used onomatopoetically of buzzing or humming noise but also for a troop of people, both senses being appropriate to the dead, the not-so-silent majority who chirp, mutter and whisper from the dust
(Isaiah 8:19,
29:4).32
L'Heureux links the name zamzummim to the Hebrew zamam, "to murmur".33
Graves and Patai in
Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis
translate zamzummim as "achievers", probably in the sense that they were exceptionally strong and athletic, but do not give the provenance of this translation.34
DeLoach suggests that the translation "stammerers" should be understood as "speakers of a barbarous tongue".35
However, we believe the necromantic concept is best here because, as we have seen, the Rephaim considered themselves to be the reincarnated spirits of ancient heroes. Moreover, the Amorites were known for their worship of the dead,36 even speaking to them in "peeps" and "mutters". Therefore, the name "Zuzim" or "Zamzummim" should be understood as "mutterers" in the sense of communicating with the dead.
Interestingly, some have proposed that the term "Zamzummim" should be understood as "Ham-Zuzim", i.e., "the Zuzim from Ham", their capitol city. Hitchcock's Bible Names Dictionary also has the cryptic entry, "Zamzummims, projects of crimes; enormous crimes".37

homo artificialis rephaim emi
The Emim were another Gibborim subclass that lived just south of the Zuzim and east of the Dead Sea. They are mentioned twice in the Bible, first in
Gen. 14:5
and, like the Zuzim, recounted by Moses in
Deut. 2:10-11. Like the Zuzim, they had been seriously depopulated by Chedorlaomer around 2000 b.c., but had been exterminated by the Moabites somewhere betweeen 2000-1300 b.c., who settled just south of their Ammonite cousins.
"Emim" is variously translated as "fearsome ones" (Pope), "awesome ones" (Wenham)38 "dreadful ones" (DeLoach) and "Terrors" (Graves and Patai).

homo artificialis rephaim hori
The Horim were yet another Gibborim subclass that lived just south of the Emim and east of the Vale of Siddim, in the mountains of Seir. They are mentioned three times in the Bible, first in
Gen. 14:5-6
and, like the Zuzim and Emim, recounted by Moses in
Deut. 2:12
and
Deut. 2:22.
They too had been seriously depopulated by Chedorlaomer around 2000 b.c., but had been exterminated by the descendants of Esau somewhere betweeen 2000-1300 b.c.
Not much is known about them, except that they were cave-dwellers in the mountains of Seir, south of the Emim area.
Smith's Bible Dictionary suggests that the name "Horim" was taken from the term "cave-dweller".39

homo artificialis rephaim avvi
The Avvim are the final Gibborim subclass mentioned in the Bible that existed during the time of Abraham. They lived in southwestern Palestine, in the area around Gaza. They are explicitly mentioned only once in the Bible, in
Deut. 2:23.
They apparently had not been affected by Chedorlaomer, but had been exterminated by the Caphtorites, another descendant of Ham, somewhere betweeen 2000-1300 b.c. However, according to
Josh. 13:3,
some may have still existed in that region for some time afterwards.
Like the Horim, not much is written about the Avvim. Graves and Patai translate their name as "Devastators" or "Serpents".
The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia
equates them with the Hivites,40 which means that some must have survived the Caphtorite onslaught, as the Hivites are listed as those among the Canaanites that had to be destroyed during the time of Moses
Ex. 23:23.

Lot and family fleeing Sodom. The brother of Abraham, Lot's descendants later finished off the Zuzim and Emim. Image from
Art Passions.

In Phase 3 of YHWH's war against the rebels, YHWH had used one of the descendants of Shem  Chedorlaomer, king of Elam  to bring together a confederation of kings and cripple the growing Rephaim giant threat. YHWH was taking no chances and nipped the activity of the fallen angels in the bud before it got out of control. YHWH's war against the giants during the time of Abraham, however, did not officially end in the text until after the "two angels" destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. Though it was not specifically mentioned, Sodom and Gomorrah were likely major strongholds of the Rephaim, and their destruction directly by angels  instead of through human intermediaries such as Chedorlaomer  indicates that it had contained the wickedest Rephaim and Gibborim that then existed on Earth.
(Gen. 19)
In the process, the angels also saved Lot and his daughters, who would give birth to the Ammonites and Moabites that were destined by God to finish off the Zuzim
(Deut. 2:19-20)
and Emim
(Deut. 2:9-11).
Some Rephaim and Gibborim, however, were still left in the land, even after the conquests by the Ammonites, the Moabites, and the Edomites, all of whom were also descendants of Shem. For this reason, YHWH raised up the descendants of Abraham, through Isaac and Jacob, as an army to finish off the giants in the land of Canaan. And, after 400 years of captivity in the land of Egypt, Israel was about to complete Phase 4 of YHWH's war against the rebels, using Moses as the next earthly leader of His divine army.

Phase 4 of YHWH's genetic war against the rebels began when Abraham's wife, Sarah, gave birth to Isaac, though she was over 90 years old.
(Gen. 21)
Isaac in turn had two sons: Jacob, the father of the Israelites, and Esau, whose descendants migrated eastward and finished off the Horim in the mountains of Seir. (Deut. 2:12)
The Israelites, however, escaping a famine in the land of Canaan, moved to Egypt, where they grew and prospered as a nation for 400 years. Meanwhile, after the Zuzim, Emim, Horim and Avvim were destroyed, the iniquity of the Amorites came to the full as the Rephaim developed an all-new group of giant Gibborim stormtroopers  the Anakim. Growing in parallel, the righteous and the wicked, the meek and the powerful, homo sapiens and homo artificialis  one would emerge from the battle victorious, and the other would be totally destroyed.

After their 400 year sojourn in the land of Egypt, Israel was ready for their final training before they were sent into war against the giants. To this end, YHWH sent Moses to free Israel from their captivity, and lead them to the Promised Land of Canaan, where they would finish off the remnant of the Rephaim and, theoretically, restore YHWH's shalom to Earth. In the meantime, YHWH showed them many supernatural signs and wonders, which should have convinced them that He was all powerful, and that no force in heaven and Earth could defeat Him or those who were with Him  not even the fearsome giants of Canaan.

When Israel first approached the land of Canaan, they sent out a group of twelve spies, one from each tribe of Israel, to gather intelligence on Canaanite fortifications and military capabilities. The spies went all the way up through the land of Canaan, well into the old Rephaim areas in the north, and back again. Returning from their 40-day journey, they returned in fear of the giants they saw there, particularly the Anakim, despite all of the signs and wonders that YHWH had shown them:

21So they went up, and searched the land from the wilderness of Zin unto Rehob, as men come to Hamath.
22And they ascended by the south, and came unto Hebron; where Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, the children of Anak, were. (Now Hebron was built seven years before Zoan in Egypt.)
25And they returned from searching of the land after forty days.
27And they told him, and said, We came unto the land whither thou sentest us, and surely it floweth with milk and honey;
28Nevertheless the people be strong that dwell in the land, and the cities are walled, and very great: and moreover we saw the children of Anak there.
29The Amalekites dwell in the land of the south: and the Hittites, and the Jebusites, and the Amorites, dwell in the mountains: and the Canaanites dwell by the sea, and by the coast of Jordan.
30And Caleb stilled the people before Moses, and said, Let us go up at once, and possess it; for we are well able to overcome it.
31But the men that went up with him said, We be not able to go up against the people; for they are stronger than we.
32And they brought up an evil report of the land which they had searched unto the children of Israel, saying, The land, through which we have gone to search it, is a land that eateth up the inhabitants thereof; and all the people that we saw in it are men of a great stature.
33And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight. (Num. 13:21-22, 25, 27-33)

homo artificialis rephaim anaki
The "sons of Anak", the Anakim were the next generation of Gibborim giants produced by the Rephaim in the land of Canaan. Stronger, faster, and fiercer than the rest of the giants before or during that time, the Anakim were greatly feared by all  including, probably, other giant types.

At this time, many Rephaim and some Horim, Avvim and Anakim giants occupied the hill country of northern Canaan, while the Anakim completely dominated the south. The spies must therefore have seen these frightening fellows every place they went. But in their later report to Moses they mentioned only the Anakim giants  apparently because they struck more terror in them than all the rest. For ferociousness and daring, the Anakim set the standard. Against them, in fact, all the other giants were measured. Moses himself confirmed their superiority when he wrote in his book this famous proverbial saying: "Who can stand against the sons of Anak?"
[Deut. 9:2]41

The Anakim had their power base in Kiriath-Arba (later called Hebron), located in the mountains of what would later become southern Judea, about twenty miles south of Jerusalem. Kiriath-Arba was named after Arba, the father of Anak.
(Joshua 15:13)42 There, the sons of Anak, Ahiman, Sheshai, and Talmai, ruled over both the Anakim and non-Gibborim Canaanitish peoples that lived in the area. Rabbinical tradition
has a fair amount to say about the sons of Anak:

According to rabbinical tradition (Gen. R. xxvi.), the Anakim are of the same Titanic race as the Rephaim, Nefilim, Gibborim, Zamzummim, and Emim. The name (as though containing the element 'anak = neck) is explained in the Midrash (Gen. R. xxvi.) as indicating that they wore "neck-chains heaped upon neck-chains," or, as if from the verb "to press," "force," that they seized the solar disk and cried, "Send us rain," or that "they squeezed their heads into the sun" (Sotah 344b; see Rashi on Yoma, 10a). Of the three sons of Anak who filled the spies
with awe and fear by their gigantic stature, Ahiman, Sheshai and Talmai (Num. xii. 22-33), the first is represented in Num. R. xvi. and Tan., Shelah, 7, ed. Buber, 11, as challenging passers-by, saying: "Whose brother will fight with me?" (a play upon "Ahiman" = brother of whom); the second stood there stolid as a block of marble (a play upon shesh = marble), and the third made deep furrows (a play upon telamim = furrows) in the soil with every step.43

A woman from the 'Long Neck' Karen tribe that inhabitants a region of Asia spanning Myanmar and Thailand. The Anakim may have engaged
in similar practices in order to increase their height, which resulted in the lengthening of their necks at the same time, a practice
which became their trademark, and their namesake.
Image from
VirtualTourist.com

The word 'anak means "neck" or "necklace" in Hebrew, and there appears to have been a tradition of the Anakim being a long-necked race, that wore many necklaces, possibly stacked one upon the other. Perhaps what we are intended to understand was that the Anakim, like the
'Long Neck' Karen peoples
of Myanmar and Thailand, stacked brass rings around their necks in order to stretch out their necks in an effort to enhance their height and appearance. That would also explain the alternate meanings that the rabbis were exploring, including "to press, force", as if they were forcing their heads upwards, and the idea that they "squeezed their heads into the sun", in the sense of "squeezing" their heads upward using the brass rings. This type of purposeful manipulation of the body in order to create frightening and disturbing effects, including neck and skull malformation, extensive piercing, body painting, tattooing and similarly bizarre methods of body modification, appears to have been typical of the Anakim, and of the Nephilim generally. Unlike the Karen women, however, it appears that the intent of the Anakim was not to enhance their physical beauty, but to make themselves look taller and fiercer, an effect that worked as a form of psychological warfare to further terrify their enemies. This would fit the Anakim profile as, according to the picture of them painted by the commentators, every aspect of Anakim life was geared towards the art of war. DeLoach explains,

A giant skull, one of collection of giant skulls on display in the
Gold Museum
in Lima, Peru. Purposeful deformation of the skull in order to increase height and engender fear in one's enemies is a tradition that
is ancient and widespread. Image from
Light 1998.

In the plural, Anakim means "people of the necklace" or "neckpiece," and so it is explained by the ancient rabbis. The name comes from 'anaq, the Hebrew word for "necklace". Moses, in
Numbers 13:33,
affirms that they descended from the Nephilim. Their uncommon height was, of course, enough to arouse in people of normal size some uneasiness. But the Anakim were also a fierce, half-wild people, given to deeds of great daring. Consequently, they loved war and regarded it as a normal way of life. So ingrained was their inclination to fight that when no common enemy could be found against whom they could exercise their natural belligerency, they fought amongst themselves. Such a hostile attitude, combined with their extraordinary stature, caused shivers in most people who came in contact with them.44

When the spies returned from exploring Canaan, all of the spies save Joshua and Caleb brought terrifying reports of the sons of Anak, spreading such fear in the camp that the Israelites threatened to stone Moses and return to Egypt. As a result, YHWH was so angry with them that, if not for the intercession of Moses on their behalf, He would have destroyed Israel right then and there. Instead, relenting, YHWH sentenced Israel to wander in the wilderness for 40 years, during which time He further purified them, killing off all those in the camp who had murmured against Moses. The only two fighting men who survived from that generation were Joshua and Caleb, the only two who had faith that YHWH could easily defeat the giants despite their great size, as they knew that it was not by might nor by power, but with the Spirit that YHWH fought against the giants.

During the 40 years of spiritual training in the wilderness, a new generation of Israelites had grown up in an environment where they had been trained to rely solely on YHWH for their survival. As a result, they were now ready to to take on the giants of Canaan, as fighting against the giants, without YHWH's angels fighting for them, would surely result in defeat. Determining that Israel was now ready, YHWH directed Moses to lead the Israelites to attack the remnant of the Rephaim giants on the east of the Jordan River first, leaving the Rephaim and Anakim west of the Jordan to Joshua. And of these Rephaim, two were most famous: Sihon and Og, kings of the Amorites.

Sihon was a famous Rephaim giant that ruled over the Amorites east of the Jordan river during the time of Moses. Though it is not specifically stated, it appears likely that the Amorites had, by that time, been genetically modified and interbred into yet another Gibborim class of giant that, like the Anakim, was used by the Rephaim as stormtroopers for their inhuman armies. If so, "the iniquity of the Amorites" had literally come to the full, as the Amorites themselves had been completely converted into Gibborim-type homo sapiens / homo artificialis hybrid giants through interbreeding with the Rephaim.

By the time of Moses, Sihon and the Amorite Gibborim had driven the Ammonites south into the hills, taking their territory from the River Jabbok in the north as far as the River Arnon in the south. There, Sihon ruled over the Amorites from Heshbon, and his brother, Og, ruled over the Amorites of the north, in Bashan.45
"Over these Transjordanian Amorites reigned two giant kings, Sihon and Og. Moses refers to them as remnants of the Rephaim. Og later became the most famous of the two, because of his great bedstead. But from what records we have, Sihon appears to have been the most powerful and probably posed the greatest threat to the advancing Hebrews' plan of attack."46

Sihon and Og were widely respected and feared, and well-protected, both physically and spiritually, so YHWH took no chances with them. To ensure the victory, He sent Moses himself against them in the preliminary assault against the giants of Canaan that would set up the rest of the conquest of Canaan. As DeLoach explains,

In their day, Sihon and Og commanded wide respect as great and mighty monarchs. Although Sihon is not described in scripture as a giant, as Og was, other sources definitely place him among the Rephaim. Rabbinical literature, for instance identifies him as Og's brother. The ancient rabbis likewise list both kings as grandsons of Shemjazai [aka, Semjaza], a fallen angel (Niddah 61a), who evidently was of the Nephilim. Sihon, they further write, resembled Og in stature and bravery (Midrash, Agadah, Hukkat, ed. Buber, p. 130a). These old writings also identify him with Arad the Canaanite (Numbers 21:1), who was called Sihon because he resembled the foals in the desert for swiftness. Accordingly, the rabbis sometimes referred to him as "the Canaanite", claiming that he was overlord of that land and had over there many vassal kings who paid him tribute.47

Being the grandsons of Semjaza himself, Sihon and Og could not have been moved unless a more powerful angel  most likely
Michael the archangel
 fought against them and removed their powerful protection in preparation for the Israelite conquest. Michael does indeed fight against the fallen angels, as is evidenced by
Daniel 10:13
and related references. Michael is also the angelic patron of Israel
(Daniel 12:1),
and is thus most likely the angel that YHWH sent before Israel to drive out the Canaanites, confuse them, and manipulate them and their environment to the point where they were weak and easily conquered:

20Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared.
21Beware of him, and obey his voice, provoke him not; for he will not pardon your transgressions: for my name is in him.
22But if thou shalt indeed obey his voice, and do all that I speak; then I will be an enemy unto thine enemies, and an adversary unto thine adversaries.
23For mine Angel shall go before thee, and bring thee in unto the Amorites, and the Hittites, and the Perizzites, and the Canaanites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites: and I will cut them off.
27I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs unto thee.
28And I will send hornets before thee, which shall drive out the Hivite, the Canaanite, and the Hittite, from before thee.
29I will not drive them out from before thee in one year; lest the land become desolate, and the beast of the field multiply against thee.
30By little and little I will drive them out from before thee, until thou be increased, and inherit the land.
31And I will set thy bounds from the Red sea even unto the sea of the Philistines, and from the desert unto the river: for I will deliver the inhabitants of the land into your hand; and thou shalt drive them out before thee.
(Exodus 23:20-23, 27-31)

Besides Michael and the angels engendering superstitious fear and terror into the giant population, reducing their morale and thus their fighting effectiveness, commentators believe the reference to "hornets" means that massive swarms of hornets invaded the tall, strongly fortified castles of the giants, driving the giants out into the open where they were much more vulnerable. The text seems to promote the idea that nature itself was fighting against the giants who, like the Nephilim and Gibborim of the antediluvian world, were out of balance with nature. As a result, the land was "vomiting them out", driving them out and destroying them little by little to the point where they were ripe for conquest.
(Lev. 18:24-28)

Finally, by playing on Sihon's pride, Michael manipulated him into a position where his weakened, confused, fearful and demoralized armies were all in one place, out in the open, where the armies of Israel could finish them off all at once:

21And Israel sent messengers unto Sihon king of the Amorites, saying,
22Let me pass through thy land: we will not turn into the fields, or into the vineyards; we will not drink of the waters of the well: but we will go along by the king's high way, until we be past thy borders.
23And Sihon would not suffer Israel to pass through his border: but Sihon gathered all his people together, and went out against Israel into the wilderness: and he came to Jahaz, and fought against Israel.
24And Israel smote him with the edge of the sword, and possessed his land from Arnon unto Jabbok, even unto the children of Ammon: for the border of the children of Ammon was strong.
25And Israel took all these cities: and Israel dwelt in all the cities of the Amorites, in Heshbon, and in all the villages thereof.
26For Heshbon was the city of Sihon the king of the Amorites, who had fought against the former king of Moab, and taken all his land out of his hand, even unto Arnon.
32And Moses sent to spy out Jaazer, and they took the villages thereof, and drove out the Amorites that were there.
(Numbers 21:21-26, 32)

The Conquest of Canaan during the time of Moses and Joshua, ca. 1300 b.c. The Conquest was begun by Moses, who destroyed Sihon and Og
and took the entire area east of the Jordan away from the Anakim and Rephaim. He then moved against the remnant of the Rephaim who
were making a last
stand at Edrei, and then Israel encamped across the river Jordan from Jericho, their next primary target. Leadership then fell to
Joshua, who took Jericho, Ai, and defeated a confederation of Amorite kings at Gibeon. Following them south, he slew the remnant of
their armies, and their razed Lachish, Eglon, Hebron, Debir, Kadesh-Barnea, Gaza, Debir, Goshen, and everyone else who lived in
southern Palestine at that time, including both the Anakim giants and the normal-sized Amorites. Joshua then began to clear out
northern Canaan, fighting another decisive battle at Hazor before razing it, and then clearing out the remainder of the Rephaim in
the north and their allies. The remainder of the cleanup was left to the 12 tribes after the death of Joshua.
Click
here
to view a larger image.

Having defeated the Amorite armies all at once, including Sihon himself, the Israelites quickly moved in, as the kingdom formerly known as Sihon's had become instantly ripe for the spoil. There was no need to fight any additional armies, or lay siege to the numerous fortresses, as all of the warrior Amorites had been slaughtered in the battle, and those few that survived had turned tail and fled. The Israelites then made quick work of those foolish enough to stick around, exterminating them to the last man  just as they had been ordered.

After wiping out the remnant of the giant Amorites and Rephaim of the kingdom of Sihon, Moses then sent another large army north, to the kingdom of Og, in Bashan. Og, the brother of Sihon, was apparently the last of the true Rephaim giants in Canaan, or perhaps the last of the Rephaim east of the River Jordan  it is not clear in the text. He ruled over his own large army of Amorite Gibborim in northeastern Canaan from Ashtaroth-Karnaim, the ancient capitol of the Rephaim. When he heard of his brother's fate, he set out immediately to destroy the Israelites. However, Moses had already sent an army, headed by Jair and Nobath of the tribe of Benjamin, to destroy him. The two armies met at Edrei, the second largest city in Sihon's kingdom:48 "And they turned and went up by the way of Bashan: and Og the king of Bashan went out against them, he, and all his people, to the battle at Edrei. And the LORD said unto Moses, Fear him not: for I have delivered him into thy hand, and all his people, and his land; and thou shalt do to him as thou didst unto Sihon king of the Amorites, which dwelt at Heshbon. So they smote him, and his sons, and all his people, until there was none left him alive: and they possessed his land." (Num. 21:21-35)

Like Sihon, Og was swiftly done away with, his confused, demoralized armies no match for the Spirit-filled holy warriors of YHWH. Ironically, Og, though generally considered to have been less powerful than Sihon, took on a legendary, at times almost comical character in the many Jewish legends that grew up around him. One story has Og surviving the Flood by hanging on to the ark, swearing servitude to Noah in return for food. The legends also place Og at many pivotal points in Israel's history, including a celebration for Isaac, and Jacob's blessing of Pharaoh. During the battle of Edrei, another legend tells, "Og sat on the city wall, his legs, which were eighteen ells (27 feet) long, reaching down to the ground."49 The picture that emerges of Og is not so much that of a mindless savage, but that of a highly intelligent and sophisticated individual who was possessed of a dark side. At times almost godlike in his speech and manners, Og was simultaneously utterly ruthless in his ambition to conquer the world, treating mankind as mere chattel to fill his torture chambers for his amusement, or to be used as fuel for the furnaces of his war machine. Extreme schizophrenia, alternating between glorious beauty and diabolical evil, appears to have been typical of giantkind. DeLoach explains the quality of the man:

An exceptional giant, Og ruled a country with sixty strongly fortified cities. His kingdom, extending from the Jabbok River to Mount Hermon, enjoyed a good, year-round climate. Bashan was also blessed with an exceedingly rich soil that yielded abundant crops, and its lush pasturelands produced many choice cattle. Consequently, in ancient times it became a byword for fruitfulness. The lord of this ideal land, according to Josephus, stretched to a colossal height and possessed great strength. "Now Og had very few equals, either in largeness of body or handsomeness of his appearance," he writes. "He was also a man of great activity in the use of his hands, so that his actions were not unequal to the vast largeness and handsome appearance of his body."50

Besides the quality of the man, perhaps what elevated Og above his brother in prominence was his legendary "iron bed" that was mentioned by Moses: "For only Og king of Bashan remained of the remnant of giants; behold his bedstead was a bedstead of iron; is it not in Rabbath of the children of Ammon? nine cubits was the length thereof, and four cubits the breadth of it, after the cubit of a man."(Deut. 3:11) Og's legendary "iron bed" was 13-1/2 feet long and 6 feet wide, making it likely that Og was probably at least twelve feet tall  at least twice as tall (and wide) as the average man, who would appear as a young child by comparison. Scholars have debated the subject of what exactly this "bed" was, anything from a simple iron bed to a ceremonial couch to one of the many
dolmens
in the area, many of which were used as markers for important burial sites.51
Though the dolmen idea is a sound one, the Hebrew means, literally, "iron couch". de Moor has also explored some interesting ideas about the mysterious "iron bed" and its role in the story of Og.52

After the defeat of Sihon and Og, kings of the Amorites, Moses was "honorably discharged", and relieved of duty, and his mantle of authority was transferred to Joshua. After the Israelites had completed the conquest of the Amorites east of the Jordan, they were know set to cross the Jordan into the Promised Land. Joshua, as chronicled in the book of
Joshua, then proceeded to annihilate the Anakim and their Canaanite allies west of the Jordan. Joshua fought a war of extermination against the giants and their corrupt Canaanite allies until old age overtook him, bringing Phase 4 of YHWH's war against the giants to a close. Unfortunately, a remnant of giants remained in the old Avvim area, around Gaza and Gath. These wicked sons of Belial were left over for another generation of Israel to conquer.

Phase 5 of YHWH's war against the giants had begun after Joshua, growing too old to continue fighting, was allowed to retire and let the next generation of Israelites finish the job. However, the next generation began to fall away from YHWH, and they did not completely finish off the giants. Instead, the Israelites began to become corrupt and follow the ways of the Amorites before them  lying, cheating, stealing, and generally being immoral, unethical, and just plain dishonest. Even the high priest Samuel's sons became corrupt
1 Sam. 8:1-5
and, as a result, after a series of
"judges"
ruled over Israel for a period of time, kingship was instituted in order to maintain national standards of weights and measures, as well as national identity. Most importantly, the king was needed to help unite Israel against foreign enemies, as Israel had not followed the Law closely (or, as was the case of the tribe of Dan, not at all, but more on that later). As a result, Michael and the angels, who required strict obedience to the Mosaic law in order to be able to act on behalf of Israel, were no longer able to protect them from their enemies as they had done during the conquest of Canaan. In short, the more they sinned and took on the pagan ways of the remnant of the Canaanites and the surrounding peoples, the more vulnerable they became to being subverted and destroyed by the remnant of the Canaanites whom they had failed to drive out.

Boastful Goliath about to be slain by YHWH's servant, David.

Among the remnant of the Canaanites was a remnant of the Rephaim giants, including possibly some Anakim and some Avvim. A remnant of these giants fled from the Israelite onslaught, some of whom sought refuge with the Philistines.
The Philistines
were a seafaring people who had migrated from the Mediterranean and settled on the southeast coast of the Mediterranean, stretching from southwest Palestine around the area of Gaza all the way to northeastern Egypt. During the time of David, ca. 1000 b.c., one
Goliath
of Gath, a giant, came against Israel at the head of an army of Philistines:

4And there went out a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, of Gath, whose height was six cubits and a span.
5And he had an helmet of brass upon his head, and he was armed with a coat of mail; and the weight of the coat was five thousand shekels of brass.
6And he had greaves of brass upon his legs, and a target of brass between his shoulders.
7And the staff of his spear was like a weaver's beam; and his spear's head weighed six hundred shekels of iron: and one bearing a shield went before him.
8And he stood and cried unto the armies of Israel, and said unto them, Why are ye come out to set your battle in array? am not I a Philistine, and ye servants to Saul? choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me.
9If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us.
10And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together. (1 Sam. 17:1-11)

None of the Israelites had the courage to face Goliath, except one David, son of Jesse  a mere boy. Already had the Israelites forgotten to rely on YHWH's angels to fight for them, instead relying on sword and shield  the gifts of Azazel, the fallen angel  to help them fight their pointless wars for power and glory. Armed only with light weapons and faith in YHWH, the Israelites of Joshua's day had conquered not by might, nor by power, but by the Spirit, letting go and letting God. But by the time of David, that apparently had been forgotten, and the Israelites had taken on the ways of the Canaanites. David, however, understood the way YHWH worked and, spurning sword and shield, took his simple goat hair sling, and slew empty Goliath, whom neither sword nor shield could protect from Michael's hand:

David slaying Goliath with a sling stone. Despite its relative simplicity, the sling was a deadly weapon, capable of sending stones
hundreds of yards, and would have been particularly devastating at close range.

38And Saul armed David with his armour, and he put an helmet of brass upon his head; also he armed him with a coat of mail.
39And David girded his sword upon his armour, and he assayed to go; for he had not proved it. And David said unto Saul, I cannot go with these; for I have not proved them. And David put them off him.
40And he took his staff in his hand, and chose him five smooth stones out of the brook, and put them in a shepherd's bag which he had, even in a scrip; and his sling was in his hand: and he drew near to the Philistine.
41And the Philistine came on and drew near unto David; and the man that bare the shield went before him.
42And when the Philistine looked about, and saw David, he disdained him: for he was but a youth, and ruddy, and of a fair countenance.
43And the Philistine said unto David, Am I a dog, that thou comest to me with staves? And the Philistine cursed David by his gods.
44And the Philistine said to David, Come to me, and I will give thy flesh unto the fowls of the air, and to the beasts of the field.
45Then said David to the Philistine, Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a spear, and with a shield: but I come to thee in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom thou hast defied.
46This day will the LORD deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.
47And all this assembly shall know that the LORD saveth not with sword and spear: for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give you into our hands.
48And it came to pass, when the Philistine arose, and came, and drew nigh to meet David, that David hastened, and ran toward the army to meet the Philistine.
49And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sunk into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.
50So David prevailed over the Philistine with a sling and with a stone, and smote the Philistine, and slew him; but there was no sword in the hand of David.
51Therefore David ran, and stood upon the Philistine, and took his sword, and drew it out of the sheath thereof, and slew him, and cut off his head therewith. And when the Philistines saw their champion was dead, they fled. 1 Sam. 17:38-52

Despite the power of the sling at close range, David wisely decided to behead Goliath with his own sword to make sure, and to clearly
prove to the Philistines that their arrogant champion was indeed dead.

David had slain Goliath with the power of YHWH, who had guided the slingstone to its target with flawless precision. This unarmored, unskilled, 4-foot-tall boy of the Israelites had easily killed a ten-foot-tall giant master of the art of war, who had been outfitted with top-of-the-line weapons and armor. Moreover, in the eyes of the Philistines, the defeat of their champion by an Israelite meant that the God of Israel had defeated Ba'al, the god of the Philistines that day. Seeing this event as a clear sign from heaven that they too were meant to lose, they fled in terror, and were cut down by the Israelite armies all the way to Ekron. Thus the land had peace for many a year  but the giants were not gone yet.

But neither Israel nor David had seen the last of the giants. In Goliath's hometown of Gath there lived others, at least four of whom were also warriors. They were the sons of Rapha [i.e., remnants of the Rephaim]. The scriptures identify one of these as Goliath's brother, and some scholars think all were his brothers. Their names, as we have them, were Lahmi, his brother, who was equally huge and bore a spear just as massive; Ishbi-benob, whose armor vied in weight with Goliath's; Sippai, whose enormous height and size were the wonder of all; and besides these, one, unnamed, who had six fingers and six toes on each hand and foot. These giants probably descended from either the Anakim or Rephaim who fled to the five Philistine cities in Joshua's day.53

Though Goliath had several brothers, these too were dispatched by David's own "Gibborim", his "mighty men" whom he named after the giants whom they slew out the land  much in the way today's sports teams name themselves after historical and mythical characters. As DeLoach explains,

After David was anointed king, he reigned the next seven years at Hebron. It was probably during these years, or soon after he transferred his capitol to Jerusalem, that Benaiah, one of his thirty mighty men, did the exploits that won him renown. These included Benaiah's killing of two mighty Ariels, or, as the King James Version describes them, "two lion-like men" from Moab; his going down into a pit on a snowy day to fight a lion; and his delivering the deathblow to an Egyptian giant. The big Egyptian that Benaiah fought wielded a spear as large as a weaver's beam, while Benaiah was armed only with a club. But, in the sparring, Benaiah snatched from this giant his own spear and dispatched him with it.54

Later in his life, David, ironically, nearly met his fate at the hands of another giant, Ishbi-benob, who came upon David who was tired from battle. As a result, David's men made him swear that he would never go out to battle again, lest he quench the light of Israel. (2 Sam. 21:17) After that nearly fatal encounter, David left the rest of the giant fighting to his mighty men:

Later on, having heard the Philistines had gathered around the city of Gob, near Gezer, David sent an army against them. In the ensuing battle, Sibbecai the Hushathite slew the giant Sippai. According to Josephus, Sibbecai that day slew several others who "bragged they were the posterity of the giants, and vaunted themselves highly on that account." In another skirmish with these people at Gob, Elhanan felled Lahmi in single combat and put the rest to flight. Lastly, in an Israelite attack on Gath, the boastful giant with six fingers on each hand and six toes on each foot came out and taunted Israel. Jonathan, son of Shimeah, David's nephew, accepted his challenge to single combat and killed him. After this, the Philistines no more made war against Israel.55

Having finally wiped out the remnant of the giants, the land was at rest for many decades of the reigns of David and his son, Solomon. This was the end of Phase 5 of YHWH's war against the giants. Solomon, literally, "peace", is the same word as the Hebrew shalom, the same shalom of the garden of Eden that YHWH had intended to use Israel to restore in the land of Canaan. This shalom was now restored, in part, under the reign of Solomon  literally, shelomo, "man of peace". However, as did Adam in the garden, Solomon too fell into idolatry, and began to worship the gods of the nations and practice their sinful ways, leading the entire nation into sin. As a result, the shalom was lost, and Israel was first divided by civil war, and then destroyed altogether in invasions very similar to those that Chedorlaomer had visited upon the Rephaim during Abraham's time. Just as Moses had predicted, the land vomited them out, just as it had vomited out the giants, and a fierce people from the north came and took them into captivity.

Phase 6 of YHWH's war against the giants did not begin for nearly 1,000 years, when Christ was born. The fulfillment of many thousands of years of genetic warfare, Jesus was born a pure descendant of Adam, untainted through countless generations, through Noah, Abraham, Israel, Judah, David and, finally, Mary. However, though Jesus has since ascended, Phase 6 of YHWH's war against the giants is still unfinished. Who knows if somewhere, in secret, another "master race" of giants is being bred for world conquest? Rumours of encounters with "aliens" who come down from heaven, and vast breeding farms of hybrid "super soldiers" has set talk radio, the Internet, and related media abuzz for years. Who knows? Perhaps the consummation of Phase 6 of YHWH's genetic war against the giants is at hand, when once again Michael and the heavenly host will do battle with the giants in the Earth.

There were giants in the Earth in those days ... and also afterwards.

Rujm Hiri, a major megalithic stone circe in Bashan, the old kingdom of Og. Rujm Hiri may predate Stonehenge, and may have been
built by the same people.

Though the giants of old have long since passed, remnants of their passing can still be found scattered around Palestine, Jordan, Egypt, and Syria/Lebanon. Dolmens, stone circles, perhaps ancient giant skeletons, weapons, armor, and even forbidden technologies may await discovery throughout the region, for those who are daring enough to brave potential terror threats  or risk disturbing long-buried spirits that are best forgotten. The most famous artifacts of the Rephaim are the
Rujm Hiri
stone circle, the
Gilgal Rephaim
stone circle, and the various
dolmens
scattered throughout ancient Palestine and Jordan that mark ancient, buried secrets. Though access to many of these regions are restricted, dangerous, and even forbidden, such as the
disputed
Golan Heights
region, where Rujm Hiri and Gilgal Rephaim lie, access may be available to the persistent. Perhaps a young lion will decide the issue?

Here are some links to help you get you started on your journey. Proceed with caution:

2
Cf.
Leviticus 19:19: "Keep my decrees. Do not mate different kinds of animals. Do not plant your field with two kinds of seed. Do not wear clothing woven of two kinds of material." This legislation appears to specifically forbid the kind of meddling with God's Creation that the fallen angels were famous for.

7
David J.A. Clines, "The Significance of the 'Sons of God' Episode (Genesis 6:1-4) in the Context of the 'Primeval History' (Genesis 1-11)" Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 13 (1979), 33-34.

Giants
David Larkin, Julek Heller (Illustrator)
Rating: Giants is a classic popular reference work on the subject of giants in myth and history, and is also an enjoyable read on its own. Filled with lavish, cleverly rendered illustrations, it makes an excellent general reference book and even a good coffee table book. (Review by Mysterious World)
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Genesis 6 Giants
Stephen Quayle
Rating: Genesis 6 Giants provides a good, solid overview of giants in religion, myth and history, and also serves as a good reference for other sources on giants. Quayle also adds his own insights into the mix, providing some interesting and thought-provoking reading. He also offers several other books on related topics on his website,
http://www.stevequayle.com.
(Review by Mysterious World)
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Giants: A Reference Guide from History, the Bible, and Recorded Legend
Charles DeLoach
Rating:
A standard reference book for giants throughout history, DeLoach's classic work is the result of years of painstaking research. Books of this type are becoming increasingly rare, but fortunately, DeLoach's Giants is still in print, or else much important information on this subject would be lost, or very difficult to find. (Review by Mysterious World)
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The Book of Enoch
Ronald K. Brown (Editor)
Rating:
This book is a carefully cross referenced exegetical presentation of the writings of the prophet Enoch with other books of the Holy Bible.
The book coorborates the with the writers of Holy scriptures and revolutionizes many theological axioms on the Trinity, angels, demons, final judgment, creation, etc. The Book of Enoch gives illumination to the origin of many statements made by Old Testament prophets as well as New Testament writers and prophets. (Review by Amazon.com)
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Rank among the Canaanite Gods: El, Ba'al and the Rephaim
(Harvard Semitic Monographs 21)
Conrad E. L'Heureux
Rating:
The excellent monograph by a leader in the field of Levantine studies provides scholars with an excellent resource for understanding the intricacies of Canaanite religion, specifically that of the city-state of Ugarit. L'Heureux provides us with a comprehensive review and analysis of all of the scholarship to that date (1974) on the Canaanite gods and the mysterious rephaim. The quantity and quality of the analysis provided in this monograph makes it a must-have for any serious researcher into Levantine studies. (Review by Mysterious World)
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Conan The Barbarian: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
Basil Poledouris
Rating:
From the time between when the oceans drank Atlantis, and the rise of the sons of Aryas, came a soundtrack undreamt of. This Varese Sarebande version of the CD differs from the import in that it contains several more songs  well worth the price if you are as much a fan of Conan as are we. What is best in life? Listening to this CD while weaving tales of gods, warriors, witches ... and giants!
(Review by Mysterious World)
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Long Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit-Proof Fence [SOUNDTRACK]
Peter Gabriel
Rating:
Though originally written for the film "Rabbit-Proof Fence", set in aboriginal Australia, the primeval and mysterious passions of this aborigine-inspired music brings to mind the idea of a ancient race whose time has passed. While the booming electro-tribal rhythms of previous Gabriel work come instantly into play, there's a sense of spacious mystery that's perfectly emblematic of the story's Australian outback setting. Gabriel's penchant for dense aural construction gives way to an ambient soundscape punctuated by Aboriginal percussion, didgeridoo, and bird song, and occasionally washed over by lolling tides of synth and samples. It's an atmosphere that, like the Aboriginal world it evokes, is nearly devoid of traditional melody, but one infused with a gripping, almost subliminal power.
(Review by Mysterious World)
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Isle of Avalon: A Pilgrim's Memoir
Rusty Crutcher
Rating:
Part of Rusty Crutcher's beautiful "Sacred Sites" series, Isle of Avalon is a gorgeous rendering of the idyllic days of Camelot. Alternately innocent and dirgelike, upbeat and sonorous, Isle of Avalon at times sounds like the soundtrack to the Garden of Paradise, rather than just simply Avalon. Eerie, incandescent, pure, this CD is very pleasing to the aural palate, and a helpful inspiration for writing as well.
(Review by Mysterious World)
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Conan the Barbarian - Collector's Edition
(1982)
Rating:
Conan the Barbarian, the movie that turned Arnold Schwarzenegger into a global superstar, is a prime example of a match made in heaven. It's the movie that macho maverick writer-director John Milius was born to make, and Arnold was genetically engineered for his role as the muscle-bound, angst-ridden hero created in Robert E. Howard's pulp novels. Oliver Stone contributed to Milius's screenplay, and the production design by comic artist Ron Cobb represents a perfect cinematic realization of Howard's fantasy world. To avenge the murder of his parents, Conan tracks down the evil Thulsa Doom (James Earl Jones) with the help of Queen Valeria (played by buff B-movie vixen Sandahl Bergman) and Subotai the Mongol (Gerry Lopez). Aptly described by critic Roger Ebert as "the perfect fantasy for the alienated pre-adolescent," this blockbuster is just as enjoyable for adults who haven't lost their youthful imagination.
(Review by Amazon.com)
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The Whole Wide World
(1996)
Rating:
Director Dan Ireland shows a talent for authenticity with this heartbreaking love story based on Novalyne Price's 1988 account of her prickly romance with 1930s pulp-fiction writer Robert E. Howard, the creator of
Conan the Barbarian.
She was a schoolteacher in a small Texas town; he was the odd-ball writer who lived at home and created comic-book characters that were sexier and more violent than was considered decent by the locals. Renée Zellweger's performance is a gem of sweet unconventionality matched by Vincent D'Onofrio's powerful show of eccentricity and increasing mental illness. Though smart and feisty, this leaves us wishing the filmmakers had dug deeper into Howard's unusual relationship with his manipulative mother.
(Review by Amazon.com)
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Koyaanisqatsi - Life Out of Balance
(1982)
Rating:
First-time filmmaker Godfrey Reggio's experimental documentary from 1983  shot mostly in the desert Southwest and New York City on a tiny budget with no script, then attracting the support of Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas and enlisting the indispensable musical contribution of Philip Glass  delighted college students on the midnight circuit and fans of minimalism for many years. Meanwhile, its techniques, merging cinematographer Ron Fricke's time-lapse shots (alternately peripatetic and hyperspeed) with Glass's reiterative music (from the meditative to the orgiastic)  as well as its ecology-minded imagery  crept into the consciousness of popular culture. The influence of Koyaanisqatsi, or "life out of balance," has by now become unmistakable in television advertisements, music videos, and, of course, in similar movies such as Fricke's own Chronos and Craig McCourry's Apogee. Reggio shot a sequel, Powaqqatsi (1988), and is planning to complete the trilogy with Naqoyqatsi. Koyaanisqatsi provides the uninitiated the chance to see where it all started  along with an intense audiovisual rush.
(Review by Amazon.com)
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Powaqqatsi - Life in Transformation
(1988)
Rating:
Powaqqatsi, or "life in transformation," is the second part of a projected trilogy of experimental documentaries whose titles derive from Hopi compound nouns.
Reggio reuses techniques familiar from the previous film (slow motion, time-lapse, superposition) to dramatize the effects of the so-called First World on the Third: displacement, pollution, alienation. But he spends as much time beautifully depicting what various cultures have lost--cooperative living, a sense of joy in labor, and religious values--as he does confronting viewers with trains, airliners, coal cars, and loneliness. What had been a more or less peaceful, slow-moving, spiritually fulfilling rural existence for these "silent" people (all we hear is music and sound effects) becomes a crowded, suffocating, accelerating industrial urban hell, from Peru to Pakistan. Reggio frames Powaqqatsi with a telling image: the Serra Pelada gold mines, where thousands of men, their clothes and skin imbued with the earth they're moving, carry wet bags up steep slopes in a Sisyphean effort to provide wealth for their employers. While Glass juxtaposes his strangely joyful music, which includes the voices of South American children, a number of these men carry one of their exhausted comrades out of the pit, his head back and arms outstretched--one more sacrifice to Caesar. Nevertheless, Reggio, a former member of the Christian Brothers, seems to maintain hope for renewal.
(Review by Amazon.com)
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Ireland - The Giant's Causeway
Size: 13 in x 38 in
Rating:
The world-famous Giant's Causeway, located on the northern coast of Ireland. The causeway, a mass of hexagonal columns created by rapidly cooling volcanic basalt, the causeway has been a prominent part of Irish myth and legend for thousands of years. (Review by Mysterious World)
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